NWC3099

THE UNITED STATES NAVAL WAR COLLEGE

JOINT MILITARY OPERATIONS DEPARTMENT

ANALYZING INSURGENCY

by Colonel John D. Waghelstein and Dr. Donald Chisholm

Published February 2006 by the Naval War College, Newport RI.

NWC3099

NWC3099

ANALYZING INSURGENCY

Colonel John D. Waghelstein, USA (Ret.) and Dr. Donald Chisholm

Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island February 2006

Conventional War is to Irregular War as intercollegiate lacrosse is to Indian lacrosse. The former is played on a clearly defined field by a prescribed and equal number of players, under defined rules for a set time period. The Indian brand was played by any. and usually unequal, number on each side, with neither rules nor time constraints over an undefined area. Those who would play the Indian brand of the game should not expect to be governed by NCAA rules.

- James Trinniman, late Professor, U.S. Army War College

Nature is very kind. If you ask it the right questions, it will give you the right answers.

- Albert Einstein

Planning and executing effective conventional combat operations begin with practical analysis of the enemy, that is, imposing a structure on the problem, devising several plausible courses of action, and ascertaining which course of action is likely to achieve the strategic objective. Established planning tools such as the Commander's Estimate of the Situation (CES) or the Military Decision Making Process (MDMP) were developed as problem solving tools for understanding and defeating largely symmetrical opponents in conventional combat operations between the armed forces of states. They have been wonderfully effective in this context. 1

Devising and executing successful counterinsurgency campaigns also demands effective problem solving.2 Getting the analysis right is critical. Although it might seem

1 John Dewey pointed out long ago that the human decision maker is first and foremost a problem solver, following, more or less, several steps to make non-trivial decisions: recognizing and identifying a problem <an occasion for a decision), imposing a cause and effect structure on that problem, generating alternative solutions, evaluating those alternatives comparatively, and choosing an alternative. Dewey's insights provided the foundation for the work of Rerbert A. Simon and others in the field of modern cognitive science. See John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (Athens, OR: The Swallow Press, 1985) [originally published 1927). 2 Although we focus here on the analysis of insurgency as an essential precursor to devising an effective counterinsurgency campaign (whether in support of a host nation or as an occupying power), there are also implications for those occasions on which the U.S. may find itself as a matter of policy providing support to insurgency, as it did not so long ago in places such as Nicaragua and Afghanistan. Tools for analyzing insurgency do exist. The CIA developed its guide to analysis of Insurgency. There also Bard O'Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism (London: Brassey's,.2005), which has been used at National Defense University,

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appropriate to employ proven CESIMDMP planning tools to problems of insurgency, these tools have shown themselves less well adapted to this context than they are to conventional combat operations. The CES and MDMP represent formalized expressions of problem solving as developed and adapted for the military context during a historical period during which most military tactical and operational thought was directed toward the successful conduct of major conventional combat operations between states (mostly Western) with similarly organized and equipped militaries. They represent one useful method of problem solving but do not exhaust the range of possible practical methods.3

Insurgencies represent what Simon has called "ill-structured" problems, and others have referred to as "ill-defined" or "wicked" problems.4 It is not that insurgencies are without structure; rather, the decision maker does not know very much about that structure, in part because it may be entirely novel, in part because such problems typically involve a large number of variables that interact in important, non-simple ways; that is, they are problems of "organized complexity."s The decision maker's primary challenge is to ascertain what those variables are and how they interact, allowing him to move the problem of insurgency from one that is ill-structured to one that is well-structured, and become more susceptible of manipulation and amelioration if not solution. That is, the bulk of the energy expended will typically be devoted to structuring the problem followed by generating alternative courses of action.6 Absent reasonable accuracy in assessing the problem's structure, no courses of action developed will solve that problem.

Several specific reasons fallout from this general foundation as to why the CESIMDMP planning tools are relatively less effective in converting insurgencies from ill-structured to well-structured status than for addressing more conventional conflicts.

Assumptions. Because the CESIMDMP planning tools were not intended for comprehending insurgencies, their embedded assumptions about what matters in the analysis do not match the essential elements of the structure of insurgencies: key factors are excluded, others are overemphasized. Insurgencies are not primarily military problems (although they inevitably involve security issues and may include military operations). Concomitantly, the structures of insurgency are considerably more complex: their constituent parts are at root social, economic, and political. However, the oft-

and David Galula, Counterinsurgency Waifare: Theory and Practice. With a foreword by Robert R. Bowie (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1964) used at the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff School. 3 We hasten to point out that the analytic instrument outlined in this paper is not inconsistent with the CESIMDMP, and with analysis to come we should be able to outline how they complement each other and may be meshed together. We do not here consider Operational Net Assessment. 4 See Herbert A. Simon, "The Structure of [Jl Structured Problems," Artificial Intelligence 4(1973): 181-201. In like manner, "wicked" problems are to be distinguished from Iltame /f problems. 5 See Warren Weaver, "Science and Complexity," American Scientist 36(1948): 536-544. Weaver argued that the problems facing the physical sciences comprised three general types: simple problems with few variables and simple interactions; problems of disorganized complexity, with many variables, but whose interactions are essentially random and susceptible of effective summarizing by measures of central tendency and dispersion; and problems of organized complexity. The last type of problem is that most likely to present itself to the decision maker as ill-structured. 6 See Donald Chisholm, "Problem Solving and Institutional Design," Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 5(1995): 451-491.

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repeated truism that the "Center of gravity is the people" does not take one very far in devising a counterinsurgency campaign to defeat a specific insurgency. Neither does the truism that countering insurgency is first and foremost a political, not a military problem, and that therefore effectively countering insurgency requires application of all elements of national power, not just the military, provide much practical guidance for campaign planning, especially when military factors are more readily analyzed and measured. Using such conventional planning tools, therefore, can and has resulted in an undue emphasis on military force in counterinsurgency campaigns - undercutting the effectiveness of such campaigns. 7

Variation. Insurgencies differ far more from one another in pertinent ways than do conventional combat operations. Such differences are typically relatively subtle and nuanced. Notwithstanding their surface similarities, this obtained even during the Cold War heyday of communist-backed insurgencies.8 Given the high probability that the U.S. will, for the foreseeable future, find itself engaging in support to counterinsurgency across a wide range of states, many of them non-Western, variation in the structures of insurgency seems only likely to increase. Distinguishing two basic types of insurgency: doctrinal or revolutionary insurgency, and insurgency as part of a war of liberation, proved an important step forward four decades ago, but does not provide sufficient analytic leverage for dealing with contemporary insurgencies. 9

The rise of what some have called a "global Islamist insurgency" that may target individual states but maintains pretensions to an end to Western power and the creation of a sort of supra-national "caliphate," suggests strongly that the range of types of insurgency is being significantly expanded, not to mention alliances between insurgents and criminal gangs. lO That is to say, today we do not have an adequate taxonomy for categorizing the varieties of insurgencies we will encounter. We cannot simply assign a specific insurgency to a particular category and proceed from there to select from a pre­existing menu of responses associated with that category.

Evolution. In contrast with the requirements for planning and executing conventional combat operations, the origins and etiology of any given insurgency matter. Consequently, understanding insurgency, generally, and a given insurgency in particular, depends on clear, practical historically-grounded social, economic, and political analysis, combined with sound understanding of the cultural context in which the insurgency takes place. The practical lesson of these convergent factors is that no single analytic template

7 We are encouraged by recent trends in planning military operations toward more comprehensive analysis that incorporates and acconnts for key non-military variables. 8 Although the communists generally tried to present a common face to the West, profound differences of opinion characterized the various communist theorists and practitioners of insurgency, from Lenin to Mao to Castro and Guevara, et a!. quite apart from differences across the cultures in which they were attempting to foment and support insurgencies. The variation across communist insurgencies confronted during the Cold War, however, pales in comparison with the variation we confront today. 9 See Galula (1964). 10 See Lieutenaut Colonel David Kilcullen, Australian Army, "Countering Global Insurgency, A Strategy for the War on Terrorism," Canberra & Washington, D.C., September-November 2004.

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will work across all insurgencies, even for countering msurgency manifested III a particular time and relatively confined place.!!

At the same time, the historical record plainly shows that insurgency, both generally, and in the specific case has been remarkably adaptive in response to counterinsurgency campaigns and new circumstances and often in very short order. During the present period, characterized by fast-paced technological innovation, new tools are daily becoming available to insurgents and potential insurgents, who have demonstrated remarkable speed in adaptation and adoption.!2 Oddly, insurgents read, and they know about emerging theories of warfare, and they study their opponents' ways of doing business as assiduously as we study theirs - if not more so. The implication is that even as we attempt to discern the structure of any given insurgency, its structure is likely to be changing in ways relevant to how we attempt to counter it. Given the empirical record of the requirement to counter insurgencies for a decade or longer, we may be confident that the structure of the insurgency will change profoundly. The challenge will be to comprehend the insurgency faster than the pace at which it adapts or otherwise changes while simultaneously assessing secular trends in the structure of the insurgency.l3

Actors. The alpha and omega of analyses of insurgency are not our own forces and those of our foe. Rather, understanding insurgency requires that we consider the focal population, its government, the insurgents' rank and file, and the insurgents' leadership, along with institutions both secular and religious, other actors external to the focal nation, both state and non-state, along with, at times, the U.S. population. Central to this part of the analysis is to understand the complex relationships among these actors. As we note below, key to success in countering insurgency is discerning, understanding, and exploiting (reinforcing or disaggregating) the seams among these central actors.

Sequential versus Cumulative. Although U.S. thinking about conventional combat now tends toward simultaneity and non-linearity in operations and campaigns, combined with near-continuous analysis and adjustment, sequence and phasing remain the underlying architecture of our operational concepts and planning processes. And while counterinsurgency campaigns are susceptible of conceptualization in terms of broad phases; by force of circumstance those phases overlap in important ways, leaving their boundaries indefinite -largely because of the myriad actions they necessarily contain

II Linn's analysis of the post-Spanish American War insurgency in the Philippines revealed, for example, that even restricting focus to N orthem Luzon, variation across small regions was substantial enough to render ineffective any approach that sought to treat the insurgency as a unitary actor with a common structure. See Brian M. Linn, "Provincial Pacification in the Philippines, 1900-190 I: The First Disltict Department of Northern Luzon," Military Affairs 51 (1987): 62-66. 12 See, for example, International Crisis Group, In Their Own Words: Reading the Iraqi Insurgency, Middle East Report N°50 - 15 February 2006, for an analysis of the insurgents' execution of a sophisticated information operations campaign against the U.S.-led coalition and the Iraqi government. !3 International Crisis Group (2006), for example, argues that the present insurgency in Iraq has evolved through three distinct stages, as analyzed through the public statements of its various components: competition, consolidation, and confidence. Additionally, we would be wise to anticipate an initial period of ineffective groping in the dark in any counterinsurgency campaign.

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and the importance of the incremental, cumulative effects, vice sequential execution and I · f h . 14 comp etlon, 0 t ose actlOns.

Doctrine. Notwithstanding encouraging recent efforts (not yet secular trends), doctrine for counterinsurgency has been and remains much less robust than for conventional combat operations, in part because the problem is less amenable to distillation in formal doctrine, but also because insurgency has historically been treated as an aberration distracting from the military's real business of major conventional combat operations against similarly disposed armed forces of other states. IS Doctrine has usually lagged the evolution of insurgency and in any case has remained so non-specific as to constitute an inadequate guide to understanding and action. Consequently, to date, effective counterinsurgency planning and execution has in practice relied upon the intuitive or implicit knowledge of the experienced professional, often an iconoclast operating at the margins of the mainstream military.16 Indeed, counterinsurgency campaigns have more probable of success when devised by professionals with broad personal experience of insurgency.

Systems Perspective. The complexity of insurgency, in combination with its adaptive and evolutionary character and the typically long time frame for countering it suggest strongly the practical value of treating it from a systems perspective. We do not here consider the relative utility of the various systems models as a basis for an informed perspective on insurgency. However, o.ur approach is more consistent with a systems approach drawn from a biological rather than from a physical metaphor. 17

Comparative Analysis. To the extent that systematic analysis of insurgency can be codified and formalized, it requires explicit comparison across historical insurgencies. This allows highlighting characteristics common to all or most of them and demarcating those factors peculiar to specific insurgencies becomes possible only with an appropriate analytical framework. In tum, such comparison and analysis must rest upon a solid foundation of the appropriate practical questions about insurgencies; absent such a

14 The empirical record plainly shows, for example, that counterinsurgency campaigns based on the assumption that development (i.e., schools, health facilities, utilities infrastructure, and the like) can only follow in train the establishment of internal security are not destined to be successful. 15 This phenomenon is not new. It was as significant in the 19th century as it has been during the past several decades. See John D. Waghelstein, "Preparing the US Anny for the Wrong War: Educational and Doctrinal Failure 1865-1891," Small Wars and Insurgencies 10(1999): 1-33. In the present setting the Anny's draft field manual for counterinsurgency and the Marine Corps revision and update of its classic Small Wars Manual are two very positive developments. 16 Bernard Fall and Edward Lansdale personify those military officers residing at the margin of their military establishments who nonetheless prove highly effective in counterinsurgency. Fall was a member of the French resistance during World War II, also serving in a Moroccan infantry division. See Bernard Fall, "The Theory and Practice of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency," Naval War College Review (Winter 1998): 46-57. As an Anny intelligence officer, Lansdale served in the OSS during World War II, in 1947 transferring to the Air Force from which he ultimately retired as a brigadier general. See Edward Lansdale, In the Midst of Wars: An American's Mission to Southeast Asia (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), and Cecil B. Currey, Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988). J7 For an excellent practical example of a systems approach to understanding insurgency, see Kilcnllen (2004), Appendix C, in which he analyzes the present insurgency in Iraq.

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common metric, no comparisons can be effected. Such analysis, we believe, will never submit to the same degree of formality as the CESIMDMP achieves for conventional operations. It will inevitably require an extraordinarily high degree of art on the part of the analyst.

Questions. We do not suggest that insurgencies are so obscure and opaque that they remain fundamentally resistant to effective analysis, or that insurgents are inevitably invincible. To the contrary, like all mortals they have feet of clay and sometimes they can be downright stupid: Che Guevara comes to mind. We cannot, however, count on such inadequacy as a matter of course. Rather, defeating them requires asking the right questions and answering them with reasonable clarity and accuracy.

Thus, offered here is a set of questions founded in practical experience, a systems perspective, and key concepts of operational art: strategic objective; center of gravity; critical strengths, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities; operational factors; and decisive points.18 These questions focus our attention on the beliefs and attitudes of the key players in insurgencies, their capabilities for action, and the relationships among these players. Posing and answering these questions, it is believed, will allow the officer confronted with understanding a real-world insurgency to assess and comprehend its fundamental characteristics in order to develop a plan for an effective counter-insurgency campaign, with emphasis on exploitation of critical vulnerabilities.

Although of necessity listed in linear order we do not thereby suggest a priority for the questions, nor a sequence in which they should be asked and answered. The several categories of question are also interrelated, though shown discretely below: answers to one will have important implications for the others. Finally, we note that not every question provided here will be relevant to every insurgency, but its relevance should at least be considered; and that we do not suppose that these questions exhaust the relevant questions for insurgencies of the contemporary period or for those which will arise in the future.

1. UNDERLYING ISSUES

Insurgencies do not find fertile ground in a popUlation in which most sectors are generally contented with their lot in life. Underlying conditions ofreal grievance are necessary, usually described by a mismatch between sentiment of a significant portion of the population and government policies, especially the provision of public goods and services. One implication for counterinsurgency is for the govermnent to make significant substantive changes in its policies in order to strengthen its ties to and legitimacy in the eyes of its population. Some

18 The Principles of MOOTW (Security, Legitimacy, Unity of Effort, Restraint, Perseverance, and Objective; often remembered as SLURPO) aid the military planner in distinguishing the implications for devising operations and campaigns addressing problems of insurgency from those of conventional combat operations. Thus, they offer general guidelines for thinking about problems of counterinsurgency.

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grievances may result from factors well beyond the ability of the government to redress.

a. What issues have the insurgents articulated as their sources of grievance (e.g., land distribution; ethnic, religious, or other discrimination and allied human rights concerns; control of natural resources by multinational corporations or a central government; access to government offices; access to scarce resources such as health, education, or other basic services, etc.)?

b. What are the grievances of the population? Would a reasonable person consider them to be valid? Validity of grievance is not effectively assessed by objective condition. 19

c. Are the articulated grievances of the population and those of the insurgency the same?

d. What does the government believe to be the grievances of the population? Does it consider those grievances to be valid?

e. Are the articulated grievances of the population the same as those perceived by the government?

f. Ras the government made genuine efforts to address these grievances (the Sultan of Oman improved health services, expanded education, and built roads to outdo the insurgents in Dhofar)? Are these grievances practically addressable or are they beyond the immediate capacity of the government (e.g., major social and economic dislocations caused by globalization)?

2. UNDERLYING CHARACTERISTICS

Grasping the basic characteristics of the population is essential to analyzing the nature and structure of conflict in tbe focal state. These characteristics set the historical frame of reference for the conflict under consideration and define the parameters for possible courses of action. They are also likely to be suggestive of courses of action aimed at reinforcing or widening seams among insurgents or between insurgents and the population.

a. What are the primary characteristics (politicaVsocial/economicireligious) of the population? What are the basic cleavages in the population (e.g., Tutsi and Rutu in Rwanda)? Do these cleavages reinforce each other or are they cross-cutting (e.g., in Sri Lanka, religious alignments cut across ethnic differences)?

19 What matters is gap between expectations and experience. On this essential point, see Ted Robert Gurr, Why Men Rebel (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970); and David O. Sears, The Politics of Violence: The New Urban Blacks and the Watts Riot (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1973).

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b. What are the primary characteristics (politicallsocialleconomic/religious) of the insurgent leadership? Of the insurgency's rank and file?

c. What are the differences between the characteristics of the population and the insurgency? Do these differences matter?

d. What are the primary characteristics (political/social/economic/religious) of the government leadership?

e. What are the differences between the characteristics of the population and the government? Do these differences matter?

3. CATALYST

Notwithstanding genuine grievances among a population, some sort of catalytic agent is usually necessary to mobilize and translate unhappiness into insurgency. Defeating the insurgent hinges in good measure on understanding the aims of the leadership, and devising a means for separating that leadership from its rank and file and from the larger population.

a. Has the insurgency articulated a desired end-state (e.g., overthrow and replacement of the existing government, establishing a new state from a portion of the existing state's territory, limited self-rule, control of natural resources, or other lesser changes)? If not, can an implicit desired end­state be derived? What is the insurgency's desired end-state? In short, does the insurgency have a well-developed alternative to the government that it is able to articulate?

b. What politicallsocialleconomic/religious objectives has the insurgency articulated? How closely are these objectives connected to the grievances of the population?

c. Are there other unarticulated but implicit objectives for the insurgency that can be derived? How closely are these objectives connected to the grievances ofthe population?

4. ORGANIZATION

Organization matters. Although state-based militaries tend to exhibit very similar organizational forms, insurgencies may take very different organizational forms (highly centralized or cellular or highly decentralized) and the organization of any given insurgency may change significantly over the duration of a counterinsurgency campaign (e.g., an insurgency is likely to improve and consolidate its organizational arrangements the longer it is in existence). Courses of action appropriate against centrally-controlled insurgencies may have little effect on those only loosely organized. Compound or complex insurgencies may become more common, and while more difficult to comprehend, may also present more seams for practical exploitation. Similarly, as both history (Peru) and recent

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experience (Iraq) demonstrate, insurgencies in a given place in time may very well not be unitary entities; they may be more aptly described as compound or complex insurgencies.

a. Is there more than one insurgency? If so, do they co-exist in the same space or do they operate in different areas (as in Western and Southern Sudan)? Are they coordinated or do they compete with each other for support of the population? Are there seams that can be exploited?

b. How long has the insurgency been underway (e.g., is it in an early, organizing phase or is it in a more mature phase with a well-developed infrastructure)? See also HISTORY below.

c. How is the insurgency organized (e.g., centralized or decentralized)? Does it follow an identifiable philosophy (e.g., Maoist)? What is the content of that philosophy? What are the strengths of the insurgent organization? Are the insurgency's political/leadership elements distinct from its coercive elements (e.g., Sinn Fein and the Irish republican Army)? Are there seams between the political and coercive elements that can be exploited?

d. Does the insurgency control any territory? If so, what are its dimensions and boundaries? Does that territory include resources vital to the government (e.g., the Panguna copper mine on Bougainville in Papua New Guinea)?

5. SUPPORT

State-based militaries do not typically live off the land; they bring their own stuff with them. Nor during conventional combat operations do they worry much about the legitimacy of their actions among a given population. The contrary obtains on both counts during problems of insurgency. Counterinsurgency campaigns must grasp the type, strength, and distribution of support for insurgency in order to develop effective courses of action.

a. To what extent does the insurgency depend upon local popular support? What type of support does the population provide (e.g., food, shelter, intelligence, cadre)?

b. Is there an identifiable ethnic, religious, racial or other component to the insurgency (e.g., ethnic Chinese in 1950s British Malaya)? Is the support of such identifiable components critical to the insurgency? Are there exploitable seams?

c. Is support freely provided or is it coerced? Is domestic popular support vulnerable to interdiction?

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d. How do geography and demographics affect the distribution of support (e.g., does support vary significantly between city and countryside)? Do ethnic differences fall out with geography (e.g., Muslims in Thailand's four southernmost provinces, overwhelmingly Buddhist elsewhere)? Do some regions offer more support and others less? Do these differences constitute vulnerabilities that can be exploited?

e. Does the insurgency enjoy external support? What is the nature of that support (finances, arms, cadre, expert advice, political, etc.)? What are the sources of that support (related insurgencies in other states, other states, religious institutions; e.g. the Roman Catholic Church and "Liberation Theology" in Latin America)? Is outside support critical to the maintenance or success of the insurgency (PRC support through Yemen to 1970s insurgents in Dhofar, Oman)? Is that support susceptible of interdiction?

f. In sum, is the insurgency's support primarily internal or external?

6. FORCE AND COERCION

The coercive tactics employed and the level of coercion exercised varies by insurgency. Accurately understanding the coercive strategy increases the probability that it can be defeated and (remembering that insurgent violence is theater) that the counterinsurgent agent will find a way to exploit that strategy to separate the insurgent from the focal population.

a. What is the insurgency's coercive strategy? What are the strengths and weaknesses of that strategy?

b. What types of force /coercion does the insurgency employ (conventional operations, guerrilla warfare, raids, assassinations, terrorism, etc.)?

c. How well armed (types and numbers) is the insurgency?

d. What is the net effect to date of the force/coercion used by the government forces?

7. LEGITIMACY

The empirical record shows that insurgencies do not require positive support from their focal popUlation, but that suppressing active opposition from that population may be sufficient for their purposes. Nonetheless, over the long run, the insurgent will need to build legitimacy for its program among that popUlation even as it seeks to de-legitimate the government or occupying authority. Effectively countering the insurgency therefore requires close attention to problems of legitimacy, particularly with respect to the development of integrated information operations in support of counterinsurgent efforts.

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a. What efforts has the insurgency made to establish and maintain its legitimacy? How has the population responded to these efforts? How has the international community responded to those efforts?

b. What efforts, if any, has the insurgency made to internationalize the conflict? How has the international community responded to those efforts?

c. Generally, what is the information climate? Who is doing what in this arena? What mechanisms are in play? Who is winning the information campaign?

8. HISTORY

Apart from the immediate origins of the specific grievances motivating the focal population, and the insurgency's near-term development and evolution, every insurgency has a history that bears on the counterinsurgent campaign.

a. How did the insurgency originate (e.g., a nationalist movement against a colonial power; in the wake of conventional combat operations between states; with the break -up of a state; as a result of long-festering grievances of some portion of the population of a given state, etc.)?

b. Is there a historical experience/legacy of previous insurgencies in the area of operations/country/ region? What are the implications of that legacy? Is insurgency perceived by the focal population to be an accepted mechanism to redress grievances?

c. Has the state ever had an effective, legitimate central government that provides internal security and services to the population and controls its borders (e.g., neither Somalia nor Afghanistan have ever had such a government)?

9. OTHER QUESTIONS

Inevitably, given the wide vanatlOn in the structure of insurgencies, other questions will also be useful to address in any analysis. We provide several such questions here that none of the categories above appropriately subsume. Effective counterinsurgency will also hinge on carefully and creatively developing other questions to be asked and answered about any given insurgency.

a. Are there other legitimate political/social/religious institutions (political parties, organized religion, labor unions, women's groups, environmental groups, etc.) that provide other venues for mobilizing the population or articulation of grievances? Are these groups closer to the insurgency or to the government? Can they be co-opted?

b. Has the insurgency formed alliances of convenience with other illegitimate or illegal groups (warlords, urban gangs, drug cartels, etc.)?

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What are the bases for these alliances (what goods or services does each provide for the other, e.g .. , finances, physical protection, base of operations, etc.)? Are there seams vulnerable to exploitation?

c. What are the relevant spatial factors; i.e., geography, topography, climate? Is the state or other area of concern an island, a peninsula, landlocked? Are its neighboring governments friendly to it, or do they support the insurgency overtly or covertly (e.g., Yemen and Oman or Iran and Iraq)? Can its borders be sealed? Are there areas within the state that the insurgency can exploit as havens or bases of operation (e.g., terrain relatively inaccessible to the government such as rain forests or mountains or densely-populated urban terrain)? What is the character of that terrain?

d What other factors/variables/issues should be included in this analysis?

We began by observing that operational level planning and executing of military operations comprises one type of problem solving behavior. Effective problem solving cornmences with developing a practical understanding of the structure of the problem confronted. Insurgencies, we contended, represent problems of organized complexity, which are most likely to be initially encountered as ill structured problems. For such problems, which are not readily assigned to pre-developed categories, discovering or imposing a structure on the problem is not only the first step, but is likely to constitute the preponderance of effort in problem solving. It forms the foundation for the development of practical courses of action to solve or mitigate the problem at hand.

Based on practical experience and analysis of historical insurgencies we developed and provided a set of questions that we believe will assist materially in comprehending the structure of any given insurgency. These questions address the characteristics of the key actors in any insurgency and the interrelationships among them, and, implicitly, provide a basis for developing courses of action intended to exploit the seams, either by reinforcing those interrelationships or driving wedges between the actors, while simultaneously working toward weakening the insurgent actors and strengthening the counterinsurgent agents. We leave for another discussion the specific practical issues associated with using the CESIMDMP processes to develop and evaluate courses of action based upon the analyses developed through these questions.

About the Authors:

Colonel John D. Waghelstein, USA Ret. served for three decades in U.S. Army Special Forces, with two tours in Vietnam and five tours in Latin America. He advised the Bolivian Airborne troops who helped hunt down Che Guevara, commanded the military group in EI Salvador, 1982-1983, and commanded Special Forces from every level from Detachment to Group. Working with Russell Weigley, he earned a Ph.D. in history from Temple University. While on active duty, Colonel Waghelstein taught at the Army War College. Following his military retirement, he joined the faculty of the Joint Military Operations

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Department, where he served from 1990-2003. He is an internationally recognized expert on problems of insurgency and counterinsurgency and has published widely on these subjects in professional journals.

Dr. Donald Chisholm is Professor and Head, Contemporary Operations and Enviromnents Division, in the Joint Military Operations Department of the U.S. Naval War College. He earned his A.B., M.A., and Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. His published research addresses operational planning; rnilitary personnel systems; cognitive and organizational limits on rationality; organizational adaptation; organizational failure and reliability; and privatization of public activities. Waiting for Dead Men's Shoes: Origins and Development of the U.S. Navy's Officer Personnel System, 1793-1941 (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), received the 2001 RADM Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Distinguished Contribution to Naval Literature.

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